


Prologue

by Fyre



Series: A Little Kindness [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Slow Show - mia_ugly
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Pre-Canon, Shakespeare geekery ahoy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: It wasn’t that it was one of his favourites, but Tracy had surprised him with a ticket for the show. “The RSC,” she exclaimed gleefully, as she presented it to him. “Heard they were putting something on. Knew you’d want to see it.”
Series: A Little Kindness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628107
Comments: 68
Kudos: 166
Collections: Slow Show Metaverse





	Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mia_ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/gifts).



Avery twisted in his seat to let the two giggling girls squeeze past to rejoin their classmates. The theatre was packed with teenagers. No wonder, really. It was a matinee and every bloody school in the country seemed to like using _Romeo and Juliet_ as their introduction to Shakespeare, even if they tried to pretend it wasn’t chockful of dirty jokes.

It wasn’t that it was one of his favourites, but Tracy had surprised him with a ticket for the show. “The RSC,” she exclaimed gleefully, as she presented it to him. “Heard they were putting something on. Knew you’d want to see it.”

She’d even paid for his train fare to Stratford and even if it _was_ just _Romeo and Juliet_ , he wasn’t about to say no to a chance to see it. Especially not when he was in the middle of a dry spell and was trying to stop himself spiralling. He’d resorted to working in a café to make ends meet. Tracy was doing most of the heavy-lifting on the bills, but he put in what he could when he could.

When – not _if_ – he was successful, he’d made a promise to himself that she’d be treated like the Queen she was. Holidays, fancy lingerie, all the shoes she could possibly complain about. She’d spoiled him so much. Especially now.

By all accounts, the production was an interesting one. The director had decided to go contemporary and a bit political – which of course meant there had been some very pointed complaints – by layering in a Catholic and Protestant subtext. It wasn’t technically set in Northern Ireland, but according to the reviews Avery had read, there was strong allusions and the mise-en-scene leaned heavily into the iconography of the Troubles.

The cast, from what he’d heard, were the new up-and-comers in the RSC. He’d heard rumours through the grapevine that someone in the class above him at the Old Vic had made it into the production. Not a big role, according to the chatter, but still – at Stratford with the RSC within 2 years of finishing. Not a bad start.

Around him, people were talking and leafing through the playbills and he surreptitiously tried to steal a glance at the full cast list. Too late, though, as the lights went down and the curtain rose on a stage framed by brick walls and graffiti and boys chugging cans of lager.

On-the-nose, was Avery’s first impression. A bit much. But the cast were leaning into it and somehow, it worked. Certainly, it would be a memorable lesson for the hordes of teenagers seated around him, all of them staring up raptly at the stage. He recognised a couple of the cast, but then on came Mercutio and Avery stared, slack-jawed.

Anthony bloody Crowley.

How had he missed that bit of casting? The man was famous, silver screen baby, child of two film legends. Avery’s sister had had a mad crush on him ever since he did some daft rom com when he was probably not even twenty – his breakout role, so her magazines said – and had dragged him to the pictures to see Crowley’s next film.

The film hadn’t been all that impressive, but Crowley was chewing at the scenery like he had a vendetta against it, infusing insipid love interests with more fire than they had any right to have. He needed a role to get his teeth into.

And now, there he was, red hair longer and looser over the black vest and white shirt he was wearing. He looked like the frontman of some edgy band, a swagger in his step, condescension in the lazy curl of his lip, a cigarette dangling from his hand.

He slung an arm around the wide-eyed Romeo’s shoulder, grinning as wide as a snake. “Nay, gentle Romeo,” he said, spinning suddenly, and twirling Romeo with him, “we must have you dance!”

Avery couldn’t stifle the snort of amusement and it only got worse when Romeo lamented and Mercutio pouted at him, batting his eyelids in a mockery of misery, then twirled him again and dipped him with an ebullient shout, “You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,  
and soar with them above a common bound!”

The dynamic was… well, it was perfect. So playful and affectionate, Crowley’s Mercutio draping himself all over his friends like a demanding cat, dropping his chin on Romeo’s shoulder, nosing at his cheek, wide-eyed and pouting, pinching him on the arse to stop him complaining until…

Until the Mab speech.

After the eye-rolling and face-pulling and playfulness, the sudden stillness was like a rock cast in a pond.

“Oh,” Crowley breathed, some mesmerising mingling of fear, awe and dread in his expression, “then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.”

Benvolio and Romeo laugh, but Crowley – with a tension that Avery could feel down to his bones – flicked away the stub of his cigarette, hurrying across to his friends, shaking his head, urgent and rushed and breathless, as if terrified. Beat on beat, drum on drum, the rhythm picked up pace, Avery’s fingers tapping out the pentameter on the arm of the seat, his heart a thundering mess until Romeo interceded, grappling the frantic Mercutio and called him to peace.

And then, the lull, the calming of the wild eyes, though Mercutio’s gaze still flitted about, as if half-expecting retribution or reprisals. He laughed, too bright, smiled, too sharp, and patted Romeo on the arm. “True, I talk of dreams,” he murmured, tongue dating along his lips, then groped in his pocket, pulling out a flask, raising it in mocking toast.

That…

That was what he had suspected lay behind the placid characters Crowley had always played: a dangerous, almost feral intensity, a wildness that teetered on the edge of promise and threat, all bared teeth and raw and primal.

Oh, Sarah was going to have an absolute fit when she heard what she’d missed.

The great tragedy, he thought, as the play progressed was that they would lose Mercutio in act 3, scene 1. But, oh when he took to the stage, Crowley made him blaze like a firework, wild, reckless, laughing, mocking, cynicism and bitterness slipping in, a tangible, visible pain etched on his face by the time they reached the confrontation and he lashed out furiously at Tybalt and Romeo in equal measure.

Avery’s heart was in his mouth as the duel came to its terrible conclusion. Mercutio smiled and laughed and suddenly coughed blood. Some of the girls in the audience screamed. He touched his mouth, stared at his fingers, then at Romeo, taking careful – painfully deliberate – steps towards him.

“I am hurt,” he said, sounding offended and puzzled, then coughed again. His voice dropped to a bloody whisper, his eyes rolling Heavenwards, “A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.”

Avery closed his hands tight around each other, scarcely able to breathe, as Romeo and Benvolio – panicked – rushed towards him. Mercutio batted them away with visible effort, straightening up, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Is he gone, and hath nothing?”

“What, are thou hurt?” Benvolio grabbed at his arm, trying to steady him, but Mercutio shook him off.

Mercutio recoiled as if even that little bit of contact pained him, turning his face from them, wiping and wiping at his mouth, his chin smeared. “Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch.” His back to his friends, he lifted his coat away from his side. His shirt – once white – was soaked. Avery – half a dozen rows from the front – was close enough to see the tremor in his lip, the way he swallowed, laughed, brittle and frail. “Marry, 'tis enough.

Romeo barrelled over to him, flinging an arm around his shoulder, worry all over his face. “Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.”

Crowley’s expressions were exquisite in their agony. He glanced upwards, as if in prayer, then his face trembled into a forced smile. “No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve:” He nudged Romeo with a pink-toothed grin. “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

Both Romeo and Benvolio laughed – along with some of the audience – then all of them gasped aloud as Mercutio dropped like a rock, crashing to his knees on the stage.

“I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.” He looked up at them, shrugged his shoulders and his coat slipped from his shoulders. Romeo cried out and Benvolio staggered at the sight of him covered in blood. Mercutio’s smile was a shadow of a thing, tears welling in his eyes as Romeo caught him, arm around his shoulder, trying to hold him up, steady him. “A plague o' both your houses.” His ribs heaved, shivering gulping words tearing out of him. “'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!” He lifted a trembling hand to Romeo’s face, his voice fading by the moment. “Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.”

Romeo was crying as hard as Mercutio. As hard as Avery and quite probably half the audience. “I thought it for the best.”

Mercutio swayed into him, clutching at his side. Fresh blood welled between his fingers. “A plague o' both your houses,” he whispered, curling into Romeo’s embrace, grasping at Romeo’s shirt with his other hand. He laughed into a ragged sob. “They have made worms' meat of me: I have it and soundly too.” He raised his face to Romeo’s, knocked his brow against the other man’s. “Your houses…”

The whole auditorium was silent but for scattered sniffles. Avery hastily swiped at his cheeks, blinking hard. The girl next to him didn’t even notice, wide-eyed, wobble-lipped and mascara-striped.

The rest of the play seemed much more colourless without Mercutio, but the director had taken it into account. It slipped into the costumes, the styles, the looks. The blazing heart of rebellion had bled out on the stage – the stained remained for the rest of the show – and the ripples carried and carried.

Romeo’s isolation and downward spiral became all the more tragic and his return to Verona leading him passed Mercutio’s angel-shaped gravestone, the name incised sharply, as he staggered, trembling and shattered, into his wife’s tomb. Cradling her as he once cradled Mercutio, he drank the poison and – for the first time in his experience of the play – Avery could understand why.

A beloved friend dead only yards away, his wife turned the same way. What else did he have left when everyone was turning to dust around him?

The applause when the show ended was thunderous, teenagers whooping and yelling. Avery scrubbed his cheeks again before the lights came up, watching the cast pour back onto the stage. And there, among them, Anthony Crowley beamed, lit up and brilliant and at once, Avery leapt to his feet, clapping his hands as hard as he could.

The cast took their bows in groups and you would have had to have been deaf not to hear the volume rise to a roar when Anthony Crowley stepped forward to take his bow. He swatted with one hand, grinning, as if brushing away their cheers, then stepped back and let the leads step forward.

That smile was like nothing Avery had ever seen before. Staggering. Electric.

Oh, he would have to dig into the man’s back-catalogue, see if he could find some more performances like that. Rom coms were chicken scratchings compared to his Mercutio. Surely, _surely_ , some director had noticed and taken advantage of it.

As he was swept along with the rest of the audience, he couldn’t help smiling as he heard them excitedly chattering about “the cool one”. It wasn’t as if he even _knew_ Crowley, but the man deserved every bit of credit.

He was still smiling like an idiot when he finally got home, some four hours later – delays on the Chiltern line – and dived down to hug Tracy who was dozing on the sofabed.

Ten minutes later, once she’d patched the scratches on his cheek – Christ, Az, don’t jump on a sleeping woman like that! You can’t expect me to take it well! – she plopped down on the sofabed beside him.

“Worth it?” she asked, smiling.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Like you can’t tell.”

She patted his cheek gently, smoothing the plaster in place. “It’s like I know you, isn’t it?”

He reached up and squeezed her hand. “Yeah.” He kissed her firmly on the palm. “And as soon as I get famous and successful, I’ll set you up with the finest piece of totty I can find to say thank you.”

“I’ll make a list.” She looped her arm through his and popped her chin on his shoulder. “I’m glad you enjoyed it, pet. You were looking so down.”

“Yeah.” He covered her hand on his arm, squeezed it. “It’s… it’s a bit disheartening, that’s all. But I’ll keep trying. Everyone has to start somewhere.”

“Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be Romeo.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I might be a bit old.” He thought of flaming hair, blood dripping from long, thin fingers, and tremulous brown eyes. “Wouldn’t mind trying Mercutio, though.”

“You know I have no buggering idea who that is, don’t you?”

He laughed and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I know.” He squeezed her hand again. “Thanks.”

“Ah, sharrup,” she grumbled fondly. “I’ll consider us even when you get me Daniel Day Lewis.”

“Aiming a bit high, there!”

She swatted him. “Oi!”

He grinned at her. “Oi, yourself! I need to get into films before I can get there. I can do you a…” He frowned, thinking about people he _had_ crossed paths with. “John Pertwee?”

Tracy made a face. “We can renegotiate later. Now, d’you want some shepherd’s pie? I’ve kept some from lunch. Should be enough for the both of us.”

He rubbed his cheek on her hair. “I’ll sort it.”

“And then you can tell me all about the play.”

Avery nodded, thinking of tears and blood and a slanting, shivering lip. “Sounds good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't help myself :) In this performance, Crowley's look is somewhere between Curt Cobain and Michael Hutchens. The year is 1995. The performance is a culmination of about a dozen variations of that bloody play that I had to watch at uni.


End file.
